


show me going

by Love_Me_Dead



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Team as Family, but they're truly bros, like there's a hint of romance, malcolm and dani are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24428278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_Me_Dead/pseuds/Love_Me_Dead
Summary: A calm day off turns sour when Malcolm stops by the precinct.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	show me going

**Author's Note:**

> two works in as many days? who have I become? this fic is heavily based on the Brooklyn-99 episode of the same name (s05ep20) and I've borrowed Dani's badge number from [Embers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934340)! Enjoy!

Malcolm wasn’t even supposed to be at work today. There were no new cases, nothing that needed a profiler, and he had planned to have drinks with Ainsley later. It was an opportunity to relax for once. But he needed a word with Gil, just a quick drop in on his way to the pharmacy to refill his prescriptions and his empty licorice container. 

He entered the precinct and everything seemed normal. Detectives sat at their desks and uniformed officers milled about and someone complained about the coffee. Normal. 

Malcolm walked into Gil’s office, knocking on the door to announce his presence. “Hey, Gil, I was wondering -”

“Shh!”

Malcolm stopped. JT stood over Gil’s desk, his hands braced on the edge of the table, as they listened to a scanner. 

“Active shooter in Chelsea, requesting additional units.”

Malcolm stepped into the office and listened to the scanner.

“Multiple casualties,” Gil said, running a hand over his beard. “ESU is en route and nearby officers are responding to the scene.”

He nodded, his fingers fussing together. JT leaned over the desk, watching the scanner intently, as though he could make it say something if he glared at it.

“Walker, 9716, show me going.”

“9716, I have you going.”

Malcolm frowned at the scanner, folding his arms over his chest. He’d completely forgotten what he was going to say earlier, too focused on the scanner.

“Powell, 1104, show me going.”

“1104, I have you going.”

“Powell?” Malcolm said. “Dani Powell?”

JT stood up and clenched his fists. “That’s her badge number,” he said. “Shit!”

Malcolm’s blood ran cold. His hands shook and he curled them both into fists. “It’s in Chelsea, right? We should go.”

Gil shook his head. “ESU has already responded,” he said. “And the 10th Precinct has the area locked down.”

“And? I’m sure they could use more people,” Malcolm said.

“Bright, you’re a consultant,” Gil said. “Even if they needed us, I wouldn’t bring you.”

He ignored the static hum of the scanner, of other officers responding. “I was in the FBI,” he said, pacing. “We have to go help her.”

JT shook his head. “Gil, I’m with Bright,” he said. “That’s Dani. We gotta help her.”

“We have been ordered to stay on alert,” Gil said. “But not respond.”

Malcolm ran a hand through his hair. “But that’s just a suggestion, right?”

“Bright,” Gil said. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do.”

The scanner crackled. “We’ve got three dead, multiple injuries. All civilians.”

“Look, she’s not alone,” Gil said. “And, it’s Dani. Bronx girl, remember?”

Malcolm’s hands shook as he remembered tackling her to the ground, in the throes of a night terror, and clutching onto her. The way her hand rubbed over his back, the way she held him tight, like she meant it, even though they barely knew each other. And then their next case, holding his hand as he was taken to the hospital. 

JT sighed. “What can we do from here?” He asked.

Gil shook his head. “Business as usual.”

Malcolm wasn’t even meant to be here today. It was supposed to be a quick stop on his way to the drug store. And now he wouldn’t leave until he knew that Dani was okay. 

“Bright, you should go home,” Gil said. 

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t - I don’t have a scanner at home.”

Gil raised his eyebrows.

“It’s true,” he said.

“JT, take him home,” Gil said.

“No,” Malcolm said, firmer this time. “I’m staying here. I need - I need to know what happens.”

JT shrugged. “It’s not like we’re going to get much work done anyway.”

Gil sighed. “Fine. But you are  _ not _ responding to this scene, all right? That is an order.”

Malcolm nodded. He followed JT out of Gil’s office and into the empty conference room. The case board was clear, ready for their next potential case. JT peered out the window and let his breath out.

“You wanna talk about it?” JT asked.

“Statistically, she’s more likely to die from an accident than a work-related situation,” Malcolm mumbled. He had rattled off the same fact to his mother when she expressed her discontentment at his career choice.

JT snorted. Malcolm paced behind the chairs, running his finger over his upper lip. He could hardly stand to look at the table, where Dani often perched during their meetings. He would only be disappointed that she wasn’t there.

“What was she doing in Chelsea?” Malcolm mumbled.

“Following up on something,” JT said. “But she loves the cold brew at a cafe around there. Says they don’t charge extra for oat milk.”

Malcolm glared at the wall. “She drinks oat milk?”

Dani was his best friend - his  _ only _ friend - and there were a thousand things that he didn’t know about her. She drank oat milk. She loved cold brew. Her father, a police officer, died in the line of duty when she was sixteen years old and she had adopted his badge number.

“You’re real worried, huh?” JT mumbled.

“I don’t know anything about her,” Malcolm said. He stared at the blank wall. 

“Bright, she’s going to come back,” he said. “She’s been in active shooter situations before.”

Malcolm looked down at his hands. He expected JT to tease him, to make a joke out of the situation, and it was somehow worse that he wasn’t doing any of that.

Gil was right, though. There was nothing that Malcolm could do that ESU couldn’t. He would be in the way if he was there. Even though he had experience talking killers down, he was not cleared to do that with the NYPD. He was just a consultant.

Malcolm shook his head. “I’m going to grab some coffee,” he said. “Want some?”

JT shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

He stepped out of the conference room to the kitchenette. He poured himself the last of the coffee and then, with nothing else to do, he carefully made another pot and set it on to brew. He did not add anything to his coffee. On his way back to the conference room, he paused by Gil’s office door.

The scanner crackled. “Shots fired, I repeat, we have shots fired!”

“Officer down!”

Malcolm forgot about his coffee and shoved the door open. “There were shots fired?”

Gil hung up his phone and stared out the window rather than at Malcolm. 

“An officer was shot!”

“Bright,” Gil said quietly. “Neither of them is Powell.”

“So we’re just supposed to wait until one of them is?”

Gil was pale and he shook his head. “Malcolm, there’s nothing we can do.”

Malcolm stood in front of Gil, shaking from head to toe. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as he tried to form an argument, anything that could make Gil understand that he  _ had _ to be there, even if he just stood outside the barricade waiting for news. 

“I know you’re worried about her, kid,” Gil said. “I am, too. But we’ve been ordered to stay here.”

He gripped the back of the chair in front of him and glared out the window. 

“I know it’s tough. How do you think we felt when you went missing at Christmas?”

“Gil, she’s my best friend,” Malcolm said quietly.

“I know.”

Malcolm took a deep breath. How many officers had Gil lost? To situations like this or to killers or anything. How many times had he delivered the news that someone’s loved one wasn’t coming home?

“Malcolm, we’re going to get through this,” he said. 

“What if she doesn’t come home?” Malcolm mumbled.

Gil sighed. “She’s been in worse spots before, kid.”

Malcolm slumped into the chair on the other side of his desk. “She drinks oat milk.”

Gil grinned. “Yeah, I know. Had me get some for the precinct fridge.”

Malcolm smiled and twisted his fingers together. Anything to distract him. 

“Kid, it might be a long day,” Gil said. “Are you sure you want to stay here?”

“You’re not going to pay me for this time, are you?”

“I mean, I know you’re not exactly hurting for money.”

“If I leave here, then I’ll end up in Chelsea.”

Gil sighed and leaned back in his chair. Behind him sat the photos of him and Jackie. She was the only person Malcolm had known to die. She used to tuck him into bed when being at home was too much, even though he was much too old to be tucked in. She had nursed him through alcohol poisoning when he was a teenager and he was stupid. She attended his graduations from high school and university and the FBI academy, even though by that point she was sick.

She’d died three years ago. Malcolm came back to New York for her funeral. He missed her desperately at first, those quiet mornings when she would make him pancakes and coffee and the afternoons where she would help him with his homework and the evenings where she would sit with him and turn on a bad movie and make fun of the plot. Slowly, the pain lessened. 

Malcolm just hoped he wouldn’t have to go through that with Dani.

“I could talk them down,” Malcolm said. “I’m good at that. I talked down Carter Berkhead.”

“You nearly let him kill you,” Gil said.

“Same difference,” Malcolm said, shrugging.

“You’re staying here, kid.”

Malcolm nodded. He picked up his coffee and stood, padding back to the conference room. JT glanced up from his phone and nodded.

An hour passed with no news. Malcolm spent the time pacing around the conference room. He had no information on the shooters to attempt to create a profile, except that mass shooters were often injustice collectors and felt that society had wronged them in some way or another. None of that would help Dani, though, not if she ended up with a bullet in her brain.

JT found a deck of cards and invited Malcolm to play poker. Malcolm was horrible at poker and, within an hour, had lost ten dollars to JT when they were only betting with small change. JT was called away and Malcolm tried to construct a house of cards to keep himself busy. It helped to quell the tremor.

He thought of Dani, of all the times she had taken him home, the times she had tucked him into bed. He had never even been to her apartment. He didn’t know where she lived or how she lived or if she kept plants. He hadn’t even known earlier this morning that she drank oat milk.

“Nice house of cards,” JT said as he returned. “I thought your shaky hand would make it hard.”

“It generally does,” Malcolm said. “I’d hoped for a jigsaw puzzle, but…”

JT snorted. “Maybe in the soft room,” he said. 

“Any updates?” Malcolm asked. 

“There were more shots fired,” JT said. 

Malcolm’s hand twitched and the house of cards collapsed. 

“No news yet on any injuries.”

He let his breath out and set about cleaning up the mess of cards on the table. His hands shook freely now and he tried not to make eye contact with JT.

“You good?” JT asked.

Malcolm shook his head. “I’m really scared for Dani.”

“She’s going to be fine,” JT said. “But I get it, man.”

Malcolm sorted the cards into suits. 

“She’s one of the best cops I know,” JT said. 

“I just can’t stop thinking about her dad,” Malcolm mumbled. “And her badge number.”

JT nodded. “I know. It’s tough. It doesn’t get any easier to watch your friends put themselves in danger.”

Malcolm stacked the suits together and slid the cards back into the box.

“Maybe you’ll understand why we get so mad when you don’t call for backup or you run headfirst into danger.”

He looked over at JT. “I’m your friend?”

JT looked at him quizzically. “What? Of course, man. You’re part of the team.”

Malcolm grinned down at the deck of cards. He’d felt the least connected to JT - he’d known Gil for years and he and Dani bonded over their shared trust issues and traumas. But JT was too traditionally masculine and Malcolm had generally been bullied by guys like him. They were friends.

Gil came into the conference room. “They took both the shooters into custody,” he said. “But multiple officers were injured in the fallout.”

Malcolm tensed and clutched the deck of cards. 

“I don’t know the names of the injured,” Gil said. “But if Dani is uninjured, she should be getting in touch soon.”

The idea of waiting for another second when the shooting had wrapped up was impossible. Malcolm clenched his fists and looked away.

JT brought out his phone and dialled Dani’s number. In the silence of the conference room, Malcolm could hear the dial tone. And then it clicked over to her voicemail greeting.

He let his breath out and leaned back into the chair. “When will we know if she was one of the injured ones?”

Gil shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. 

Malcolm’s fingers resumed their fussing, squeezing his thumb and digging his nails into his skin, hoping to distract himself even a little. The situation was over but there was still so much left to do, even if she was uninjured. Someone would have to notify the next of kin of the victims. Someone would have to fill out an arrest report. 

It could be hours before he saw Dani again. And their shooting situation had already lasted into the afternoon. Malcolm would have to postpone drinks with Ainsley. If Dani was okay, he wanted to spend the rest of the day with her and, if she wasn’t, he would spend the rest of the day a mess.

Malcolm pulled his phone out of his pocket. He had a text from Ainsley, asking if drinks were still on. She would understand when he told her no, that something came up at work. He wanted to see a text from Dani, or a call from her. Anything to prove that she was still alive.

Gil came over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder, squeezed gently. Today was meant to be a day off, a day to de-stress and get a little drunk with his sister and think about potentially sleeping for a full eight hours. He wasn’t meant to sit in the conference room, shaking and worrying if he would ever see his best friend again.

A knock on the conference room door and Malcolm snapped his head up. In the doorway, her hair wilder than usual, stood Dani Powell, alive and unscathed.

Malcolm stood and, without thinking, walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. She laughed, hugged him back. 

“What, were you worried about me?” She asked.

“You have no idea,” Malcolm whispered. She smelled of sweat, of a bulletproof vest, but unmistakably like Dani, like coconut and vanilla.

Malcolm released her but still kept a grip on her arm, just above her elbow, because he couldn’t stand the thought of letting go.

“What happened out there?” JT asked. 

Dani sighed. “A lot,” she said with a dry chuckle. “Two shooters decided to get even with a hotel manager who fired them both. I’m sure your sister will cover it later.”

Surreptitiously, Dani reached up with her other hand and released Malcolm’s grip on her arm, instead guiding it down so she held his hand.

“You good?” Gil asked.

Malcolm squeezed her hand.

Dani nodded. “I’m fine,” she said. “A little shaken up. I just want some tea, really.”

Gil nodded. “Get some rest,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

JT exited the room behind Gil, thumping Dani on the back. Malcolm became conscious of their hands together and pulled his hand away, stuffing them in his pockets.

“Hey,” Dani said, turning to him and touching his arm. “You good?”

“Mhm,” he said. He was good, now that she was back and she was safe, not even a scratch on her skin.

She smiled. “Drive me home and let’s get that cup of tea, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

Dani’s apartment was cozy, much smaller than he would have assumed for someone making a detective’s salary - then again, this was New York. Malcolm glanced around at the shoe rack, the different pairs of boots and runners and the high heels she’d grabbed before the Taylor wedding. Dani knelt down and untied her boots, stepped out of them, and hung her coat on the hook.

Malcolm toed his shoes off and shrugged out of his coat and padded down the hallway behind Dani, followed her into her nook of a kitchen. It was tiny but it was nice. He leaned against the doorframe and watched Dani fill the kettle with water before she set it to boil.

“You drink oat milk,” Malcolm said. It was more of a statement, rather than a question.

She turned and smiled. “I do,” she said. 

“I didn’t know that…”

“It uses way less water than almond milk and I’m lactose intolerant.”

Malcolm blinked. “Well, I guess I’ll never take you for ice cream,” he said.

Dani laughed. She dropped tea bags into two mugs - one had a cartoon rendering of Lionel Richie’s face with the words “is it TEA you’re looking for” written around it while the other had watercolour flowers and said “I like pretty things and the word fuck” in cursive. 

“Lionel or flowers?” Dani asked, pointing to the options.

“Lionel is iconic, but I’m going with the flowers,” Malcolm said. “I agree with that.”

“So, does your weapons display count as a pretty thing?”

“Absolutely.”

She smiled. “I know you were worried about me,” she said.

Malcolm sighed, folded his arms over his chest. “I get it, you’re tough and you can handle yourself and I don’t have to worry about you.”

Dani turned, her eyebrows raised. “That’s not what I was going to say,” she said. “I was  _ going _ to say that I was worried, too.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded.

“I’ve been in high-stakes situations before and it’s always like that,” she mumbled. She faced away from him again, fussing with spoons and sugar and getting her oat milk out of the fridge. 

“Your life was on the line,” Malcolm said. “Of course you were worried.”

He could remember when he was in the FBI, just last year, being held at gunpoint or trying to talk down a killer who would murder him the moment he said the wrong thing. He could remember the adrenaline, the euphoria when it worked out.

“That’s not all,” Dani said. “I was worried that I wouldn’t get to see you again.”

His breath caught in his throat and he swallowed. “That makes sense,” he said, his voice shaking. “Only normal to think of your friends.”

She faced him, her hand on her hip. “Bright.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and glared into the distance of her apartment. 

The kettle hissed and she turned away again, filled their mugs with hot water. He watched as she lifted the strings of the teabags and bobbed them up and down in the hot water. The water turned amber. She pulled the bags out and tossed them in a compost bin under the sink before she motioned for him to come closer.

He stepped over, hip to hip with her as she scooped sugar into her tea and added oat milk. He took the sugar from her and added two teaspoons to his own tea. He’d never tried oat milk but he added a drop to his tea before Dani returned it to the fridge.

“You’re my best friend,” she said, still facing away from him. “And I know how much you’ve been through. I didn’t want to die and ruin everything for you.”

“You didn’t die,” Malcolm said. 

She looked at him and smiled. “You’re right.”

Malcolm opened his arms and Dani slid in, wrapping her arms around his middle. Now would have been a wonderful time for a dramatic declaration of love but that was not what either of them was going to do. Not today.

She rested her head against his shoulder and let her breath out, the tension melting out of her back. Her hands grasped at the back of his suit, bunching up the fabric, and he worried that it would wrinkle or ruin the look, but he didn’t mind right now. As long as Dani was here, as long as she was breathing and her heart was beating, he didn’t mind.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave kudos, a comment, or come chat on [my tumblr](https://bibright.tumblr.com)!


End file.
